Shin Morikita is the creator of Flying Man and Hunter, part of the Towada Art Center permanent collection. The piece’s two sculptures reside outside between the museum’s exhibition rooms and can be found only by looking up to the sky. Are they floating there? Or is one trying to catch the other as he tries to fly up to the sky? Their humorous figure begs us to consider their relationship and the ma, or the spaces in between.

Morikita will carefully examine a space and, with impeccable balance, exhibit simple paintings and sculptures that highlight the characteristics of different materials. Motifs such as people, houses, and trees are often seen in his work, and the relationships between environment and art, architecture and art, people and art, and even between art and art all hang somewhere in the middle, wrapped in poetic humor.

This exhibition will be Morikita’s first solo exhibition at a museum and will show the cumulation of work he has produced since the turn of the millennium. In this exhibition, Morikita tells all-new stories while sharing the latest in a series of works that can be traced back to Flying Man and Hunter. The title—Ever Present Figures—has layers of interpretation left to be uncovered while enjoying and experiencing the charm of the exhibition.

In these uncertain and stifling times, as relationships grow ever more complex and people and things are reduced to mere numbers, we hope that you will join us at the Towada Art Center to pause for a moment and see yourself and your surroundings in a new light.